Ryan Freitas, the cofounder and chief product officer, is leaving About.me. Jeffrey Veen, an adviser to the company and design partner at True Ventures, will step in to help the company as it transitions to a new product chief.

“Last summer, the time came to raise additional funding. Making great strides toward achieving the vision we’d sketched out more than a year before, there was an opportunity for some reflection on what we’d built. I had reason to be happy with what we’d achieved. Although I generally resist feeling self-satisfied, I recognized that we were at an inflection point. I want the best thing for the product and its users; being honest meant admitting my eyes weren’t as fresh as when we’d begun. After five years of building the product, I was eager for more diversity in my work and different challenges to go along with it. [Cofounder] Tony [Conrad] and I agreed that it was time to make a change.”

Independent again, About.me started making moves. The company bought WeFollow, a digital directory service that sorts people based on their social media profiles, to help people on the site discover one another. Weeks later, it rolled out paid premium features for the site’s super-users.

Freitas doesn’t say what’s next for him, only that he considers Veen “a friend and a mentor.”

As for About.me, it’s not certain what this change means for the company’s trajectory. Chances are it will mean a change in strategy or perhaps more products that eat at LinkedIn’s user base.

About.me is a platform for representing one’s personal identity online. The service enables users to create and maintain a curated page for self-expression. about.me pages offer features including bios, contact information and button… read more »

Like this story? Want to learn more? On February 23–24, our fifth annual VentureBeat Mobile Summit will tackle 6 big opportunities for business to leverage mobile to grow. The invitation-only Summit will gather the top 180 executives at the scenic Cavallo Point Resort in Sausalito, Calif., to discuss issues like this. Request an invitation.

Recent Comments

MVNO Blog has been launched by Mobile & Telecoms professionals.
We are making big changes, Our Aim is to add some exciting new areas to our blog, including Telecoms & Mobile jobs, Business directory and multimedia content.